Spectator Life

I’d heard that KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa delivers life-changing memories. Roaming Shaka Zulu’s hunting ground. The Big Five. Bushveld soil on your shoes. Falling asleep to the music of the night, curtains open in anticipation of a burning sunrise. I flew there for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime safari experience. And I got it. While sitting on the toilet. It’s a unique frustration, hearing the phone ring out, from the bathroom. My first morning at Thanda Safari transports me back to my teenage years in the 2000s; the last time I had a house phone. “I’m coming!” I shout to no one in particular, having quickly dashed to my digs, post-crack of dawn game drive. “Miss Everett! Oh, thank goodness! You ARE there! You must not leave your room!

When it comes to using trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the iconic Bud Light brand — a favorite beer here in the backwoods — my first impulse was in line with that of Kid Rock, who used cases of the stuff for target practice. It’s a reaction many Americans, insulted by what they perceive to be an attack on their traditional values and gender stereotypes, are having to varying degrees as they boycott the beer giant, reportedly to the tune of billions of dollars. Progressives, meanwhile, can’t get enough of Mulvaney.

If you’re a professor at the University of Memphis, you are required to sit through a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training where you’ll learn that you should send polite emails and what basic words like “skills” and “motivation” mean. And taxpayers get to foot the bill!The taxpayer-funded school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, requirements, obtained in full by The Spectator, are expected to take twenty-six minutes. Professors learn about every kind of diversity (from diversity of “spiritual practice” to “public assistance status”) except political.

President Biden is being an American tourist in Ireland this week. In comments to the Irish Parliament in Dublin today, the president touted the merits of rugby, a sport in which Ireland is currently the top-ranked side in the world, over the American brand of football. "I'd rather have my children playing rugby now for health reasons than I would have them playing football," the president said. "Fewer people get hurt playing rugby." Biden is a rugby enthusiast, having played while at college at Syracuse. He made a point of video-calling the Ireland men's team after their historic defeat of New Zealand in Chicago in 2021. (In the video, Biden's brother James is sporting an Ireland hat and coat.

One of the few culture war tropes that has actually dimmed during the Biden era is the controversy over the championship sports team White House visit. This is in large part because the sensibilities of the big leagues, their corporate partners and the media that covers them skews left — meaning a pressure campaign to condemn visiting Joe Biden, for example, just won’t register in those circles. So it was kind of by accident that the women’s college basketball national championship game between Iowa and LSU became a tempest in a teapot.

A public school teacher for three decades, my mother kept me out of them for nearly a third of that time. Her refusal to allow me to partake of the public education system that paid her bills echoed a memorable quote of G.K. Chesterton’s: “Everyone goes to the elementary schools except the few people who tell them to go there.”  If the recent numbers are any indication, more people have followed her example. In 2019, about 2.8 percent of US students were homeschooled. By 2020, that number had jumped to 5.4 percent. And in 2021, it was up to 11.1 percent. Research from Stanford and the Associated Press places the overall increase in enrollment since the beginning of the pandemic at 30 percent.  Around the country, red-state politicians are taking notice.

Iowa Wesleyan is the latest. Finlandia University before that. Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences as of January 2024. Many others you have probably not heard of: Stone Academy, Cazenovia College, Bloomfield College. These are colleges and universities that have breathed their last. Most often they are just local stories. A college that has been reduced to a few hundred students and perhaps two dozen faculty members comes to its final, final end.  In most cases, that final end has been dragged out long past the point where there was any realistic hope of saving the institution. As a former college president once told me, “Colleges die hard.” The faculty and administrators rarely have other career options.

The LSU women’s basketball team won the NCAA National Championship Sunday night. The Lady Tigers beat Iowa 102-85, earning themselves a trip to the White House. But the meeting between First Lady Jill Biden and LSU’s star player, Angel Reese, might be a little frosty, as Jill Biden suggested the Iowa girls tag along for the visit, too. “I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do,” Jill Biden said yesterday. “So, we hope LSU will come. But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.” It seems that either Joe doesn’t give a darn what Jill thinks, or else he forgot her suggestion already.

Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts, or so said Charles Lamb in an essay about grace before meals. Other vegetables had come to pall on him, but a noble affection for asparagus still lingered in his heart, a reminder of simpler and more innocent times. One can only surmise that he didn’t much care for the vegetable. Who feels melancholically virtuous when eating greens? People who don’t really like them, that’s who.

Mexican food is my comfort food. My devotion stems from memories of my mother’s enchiladas. I used to love watching her fry the tortillas in oil. They would bob about like lily pads, sizzling gently. Then when the bubbles formed with little pops, Mom would lift each tortilla out of the hot oil and place it on a paper towel. At the same time, she’d be heating salsa roja on the gas stove and, when it was ready, she would dip a spoon in the pan and put a dollop on a tortilla, swirling the spoon to coat the whole tortilla, then turn it over and do the same on the other side. She was such a careful cook, and neat. The bowls of fillings sat ready and waiting on the kitchen island, each with its own spoon.

Service Employees International Union Local 99 staged a three-day walkout in Los Angeles last week after negotiations failed. SEIU, which represents about 30,000 cafeteria workers, bus drivers, special education assistants, etc. called for a strike if their demands were not met by the Los Angeles Unified School District. And the United Teachers of Los Angeles decided to ditch school, too, in what was deemed a “sympathy strike.” The unions’ action forced every public school in LA to shut down from March 21 to March 23. It all played out in the usual way.

Have you heard about the latest food trend sweeping the nation? It’s called “whimpering over your grocery bill.” In the early days of 2023, Americans are spending 70 percent more on eggs than one year ago. Chicken, dairy and bread prices outpaced inflation as well, increasing by double-digit percentages. What’s an adventurous home cook to do? The answer is Budget Bytes, a website I first turned to as a broke twenty-two-year-old with a galley kitchen in Queens. I didn’t know, before an acquaintance tweeted a link to a coconut vegetable curry, that you could make a tasty, filling meal, complete with leftovers, using almost entirely canned or frozen goods. Budget Bytes taught me to cook.

The Kraft Heinz company has developed a pair of Lunchables meals slated to be served in school cafeterias starting next fall. The initiative has reignited a worthy debate over the nutrition found — and mostly not found — in school lunches. Folks are making a big fuss over the debut of Lunchables, as if the plastic packages of cardboard coasters that pass for pizza are somehow playing sloppy seconds to the gourmet wonders our schools have been crafting up to this point. Unless things have significantly improved since I graduated, Lunchables might actually be an upgrade from what most cafeterias specialize in — mystery meat sandwiches and those limp, anemic crinkle fries that led to my lifelong loathing of ketchup.

When rulers are thrown out of their countries, they cannot expect all that much. Think of Napoleon, first cooling his heels in Elba, then ending his days in the damp-infested confines of Saint Helena. Which is why the former Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, was comparatively fortunate that the Parisian spot in which he found himself living after his abdication in December 1936 was Le Meurice in Paris: then, as now, a hotel that offers not only glitteringly luxurious accommodation to its well-heeled denizens, but a tangible sense of history — its lavishly appointed suites and restaurants exude an atmosphere that’s simultaneously relaxing and conspiratorial. Turn an unexpected corner, and you half-expect to see the ghost of Wallis Simpson, barking orders at some hapless minion.

Federal circuit judge Kyle Duncan surely knew in advance that he would face a tough crowd at Stanford Law School. The Federalist Society, which sponsored the March 9 event, was prepared for some trouble, since Duncan’s courtroom decisions render him anathema to the far left. When students drowned him out with insults and obscenities, Duncan called for administrative aid. Associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion Tirien Steinbach — who had evidently choreographed the protests — was ready for her close-up. She took to the lectern to declare, “For many people at the law school who work here, who study here, and who live here, your advocacy — your opinions from the bench — land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights.

When I was eighteen, my ex-boyfriend sent naked photos of me to all my friends and family after a particularly bad argument. Inconsolable and embarrassed, I looked to my mother to see if she could help, or if she never wanted to speak to me again. She said something that I will never forget. “Don’t worry love, if I had tits like yours, I'd put them on my Christmas cards.” After that day, I no longer thought of breasts as inconsequential hanging sacks of fat. Now I just adore them — and not only my own. I have become somewhat of a breast connoisseur, and I get a good look at a pair whenever I can. So you can imagine my delight when Sydney Sweeney entered the public eye. I haven’t seen a rack that good in a while.

“There’s no snow. Nothing.” The week after Christmas, 2023. Eager to ski, I’d phoned an old friend living in a French resort at low altitude. I hoped she’d make me feel better about the headlines splashed across the newsstands. “There’s Snowhere To Ski!” “Europe Ski Resorts Close Due To Lack Of Snow.” “Record Warm Winter In Parts Of Europe Forces Closure Of Ski Slopes.” It was true, she sighed. Birds were chirping as if spring had arrived, heavy rain washing away whatever dusting of the white stuff had settled. “You’re going to have to get high”. An admittedly fairweather skier, I usually take aim at European resorts in March. When I’m lucky enough to go, my trips happen to span International Women’s Day.

Somehow an off-season for Aaron Rodgers that began with a multiday stop in a darkness retreat isolation chamber to decide his next career move has only gotten weirder now that Rodgers has announced his intention to be traded to the New York Jets. Immediately, Rodgers's decision to go to Gang Green triggered a big storyline: that he's following in the footsteps of his legendary Green Bay quarterback predecessor, Brett Favre, whose departure from the Packers to the Jets following the 2007 season was similarly fraught. Favre lasted only one tumultuous year in New York, during which he made headlines for texting dick pics to broadcaster Jenn Sterger. The Jets that year started 9-5 only to lose their final two games and miss the playoffs.